Meta-analysis reveals an association between acute pancreatitis and the risk of pancreatic cancer
Jie Liu, Ying Wang, Yue Yu
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Chronic pancreatitis is associated with pancreatic cancer (PC), although the relationship between acute pancreatitis (AP) and the risk of PC remains unclear due to inconsistent and contradictory results. AIM: To conduct a meta-analysis of retrospective and prospective studies to explore the association between AP and PC risk. METHODS: test. The combined relative risk with 95%CI was performed to examine the relationship between AP and PC. Publication bias and subgroup analyses were also conducted. Furthermore, we performed sensitivity analysis to explain this heterogeneity. RESULTS: Eleven studies were eligible for inclusion standards in this meta-analysis, resulting in pooled EEs of 2.07 (95%CI: 1.36-2.78) for AP and PC risk. Additionally, five prospective cohort studies reported 103961 patients in the AP group, relative to 1442158 subjects in the control group, with a pooled relative risk of 7.81 (95%CI: 5.00-12.19). We also performed subgroup analyses using different follow-up times and type of research methods (case-control or cohort). Results from analyses of different follow-up times revealed the following pooled effect values: 1-year lag period (EEs = 23.47, 95%CI: 3.26-43.68), 2-year lag period (EEs = 9.82, 95%CI: 3.01-16.64), 5-year lag period (EEs = 2.47, 95%CI: 1.93-3.02), 10-year lag period (EEs = 1.69, 95%CI: 1.26-2.11), and > 10-year lag period (EEs = 1.17, 95%CI: 0.78-1.57). With regards to the methods, the case-control studies recorded EEs = 3.03 (95%CI: -1.02 to 7.08), whereas cohort studies had EEs = 2.09 (95%CI: 1.22-2.97) pooled effect values. CONCLUSION: Overall, our findings indicated an association between AP and PC risk. Based on subgroup analyses, AP is unlikely to be a causal factor for PC.